Paul Ohia With Agency Report
29 May 2008
Lagos — The South African cabinet yesterday met in Pretoria to discuss an action plan for assisting victims of the violence directed against Nigerians and other African immigrants resident in the country.
The outcome of the meeting will be made known today.
The meeting resolved just as the country also yesterday reassured the Nigerian government that it would continue to encourage the growth of the "external diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Public radio in South Africa announced the cabinet meeting would approve plans to set up seven large camps which would house some 30,000 people who have been displaced during the xenophobic riots.
"The cabinet meeting will discuss everything around the violence against the immigrants. Any announcement will be tomorrow (today)," the spokesman Themba Maseko told AFP. The shelter report was later refuted by the government.
Tens of thousands of mainly Zimbabwean and Mozambican immigrants have been forced out of their homes since the onset of the xenophobic attacks in the middle of the month have left 56 people dead.
While many of the victims of the riots have simply decided to leave the country for good after their shacks were torched or razed to the ground, others have been sleeping either out in the open or head-to-toe in community centres.
National police spokeswoman, Sally de Beer said no major incident had been reported in the last 24 hours, bolstering hopes that the violence had been finally brought under control with the help of troop deployments.
The xenophobic violence has been a major embarrassment for the continent's economic powerhouse which has portrayed itself as a beacon of racial tolerance since the demise of the whites-only apartheid regime in 1994.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is due to host his Nigerian counterpart Umaru Yar'Adua next week, has come under fire for his response to the crisis.
A televised national address on Sunday night, in which Mbeki described the attacks as a source of shame, failed to silence critics who have pointed out that he has still to visit any of the affected areas.
Mbeki is currently in Japan for a conference on African development but his spokesman defended the government's reaction.
"The government has responded very firmly and police have arrested more than 1,000 people," said Mukoni Ratshitanga.
Meanwhile, a band of baton-wielding police officers are alleged to have assaulted a Nigerian national in South Africa following an unverified incident during a routine operation to check on documentation in the centre of Cape Town, the Independent Online South Africa has reported.
Also in statement from South Africa's foreign department stated that though it is yet to receive any official request from the Nigerian government on compensation from South Africa's government for Nigerians who lost their properties in the attacks, it looks forward to the scheduled state visit of President Umaru Yar'Adua to South Africa next week.
"The (South African) government wishes to place it on record that no such formal request has been officially made by the Nigerian authorities," the country's foreign department said.
"Furthermore, we would like to draw attention to the fact that both South Africa and the Federal Republic of Nigeria enjoy fraternal diplomatic relations which enables discussion of issues of mutual interest and concern between the two countries through existing bilateral mechanisms," the department added.
Maduekwe had announced that Nigeria would press South Africa for compensation for its citizens caught up in the attacks and acknowledged that no Nigerian was killed in the riot. He observed that properties belonging to Nigerians were destroyed and some looted.
"Following instructions from the foreign ministry, the Nigerian mission has already compiled the list of Nigerians affected during the mayhem with the purpose of seeking compensation from South African government for loss of properties and physical injuries," Maduekwe told journalists in Abuja Tuesday.
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